I didn’t take my first communion until I was eighteen, when after a long absence from the Lutheran church I made my way to the Lutheran Campus Ministry at University of Illinois. While atonement theology stuck in my throat, the body and blood went down easy. At the communion table I felt a sense of, well, communion—not just with the others at that table, but with the earliest Christians and even Christ himself. I didn’t imagine I was being forgiven of sins, per se, but rather than I was being inwardly transformed to be more like Jesus, somehow following his footsteps.
What was happening inside me, as the result of participation in my Lutheran church, was a growing sense of unity with all people. Luther said “For the sacrament has no blessing and significance unless love grows daily and so changes a person that he is made one with all others,” and for me this “all” became radically inclusive.[1] I left the Lutheran church, in part, because of my pastor’s insistence that only Christians are saved. For me, adhering to that stance is at odd with being a Christian. However, in the eyes of some, failing to adhere to it cancels my membership in the church.
But there is something about the communion table I miss. Last semester I began attending Jazz Worship at Old South Church because they have an open table, which suits my theology. Ellen Charry says that the reformers understood “the Mass to constitute the Church,” [2] and Raymond Maloney says, “The Eucharist is about sharing and communion, not only our communion in the sacrament, but our communion with God and one another in our daily lives.”[3] In reading their words, I get a better sense of why I have been missing communion so much. There is something about the sharing of communion that binds me to others present with a sense of common concern that I don’t always feel at UU churches.
Charry says that “The sacrament, Luther is clear, is a means for gradual transformation in love so that one makes others’ concerns and burdens one’s own and can rely on others to do so for oneself”[4] Perhaps I am missing the sacrament not only because of its value as a sign of commitment from God, but as a sign of commitment from my community. Luther said, “For there is no more intimate, deep and indivisible union than the union of the food with him who is fed.”[5] Based on this quote, one might think any church pot luck might suffice. But that’s not the case for me. In my experience, there is something about being welcomed to the table that ostensibly grants eternal life that is profoundly validating of this one.[6]
I dwell in the limnal space between Christianity and Unitarian Universalism, a space haunted by the spirits of deeply religious men and women who did not see fit to tie God down to a creed or place limits on salvation. I’ve been wrestling with the question of whether I need to claim allegiance to one side or the other. Maybe one day I will. In the meantime, I will open myself to the mystery of the Eucharist and be transformed by the love it signifies.
[1] Luther as quoted by Charry on p. 265
[2] (Charry 258)
[3] Page 274
[4] Ibid page 259
[5] Luther, page 266
[6] Maloney touches on this theme when he says that “We must not think of these meals as referring exclusively to the next life. The plan of salvation which they reveal is saying something about this life also.” Page 271
